


contingencies

by jayhood



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Battle for the Cowl, Bruce killed Jason, Canon Compliant, Gen, Jason Todd is Immortal, Post-Under the Red Hood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24095173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayhood/pseuds/jayhood
Summary: Bruce killed Jason at the end of the Under the Red Hood.It didn't take. Yet again, Jason has to clean up his messes and come up with his own fail-safes.
Relationships: Sasha (DCU) & Jason Todd
Comments: 6
Kudos: 155





	contingencies

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](https://redjaybathood.tumblr.com/), at 3AM, when all the best ideas are born.

It takes a while for Jason to realize Bruce killed him.

Maybe because coming back this time didn’t take 6 months. It was days, really, though how many, he isn’t clear. When he arose - for a given meaning of "arose"; he  _ crawled  _ through the rubble, not unlike the first time - he kept getting blacked out. During, after. Things are fuzzy when he tries to figure out where he went. Not to a place of safety, he didn’t have that anymore. But - somewhere.

It faded: the dizziness, the short-term memory loss. It was about a week after the - explosion. The City started to clear the building site up, so that’s how Jason knows.

But now, a year after, he doesn’t remember that time at all. Maybe he would if he had someone to tell about this. You remember things better, though not always truthfully, when you create a story out of your feelings and things that you know happened and things you deduced and things people told you and things you told them.

But about a year from this, Jason dies again, a bullet to his back, and it’s three days spent face down on the forest floor before he comes to.

That’s when he starts to get suspicious he can’t stay dead.

Not that he has time to ponder it over. Has to track down the person who shot him and shoot him back. This time, getting even is easier. He doesn’t feel the need to prolong it to make sure the bastard suffers as he did (maybe because he didn’t; the wound hurt, but he didn’t  _ suffer _ ; didn’t feel like it’s unfair, didn’t feel like a failure).

Or maybe it’s because it’s not about getting even but making sure it doesn’t happen again to anyone else.

It kind of puts things in perspective. Reminds him why he started doing it at all, back when he thought that keeping hands clean is what made him different from people he wanted to stop.

Now, looking back… He doesn’t feel like he’s different. Still; it’s a job that requires doing. And someday, someone will come along and stop him. He just has to make sure it’s the right sort of person.

So, ironically enough, he looks for his own replacement now. A partner that will keep him in check. A sidekick who’s going to kick his ass if he goes off the deep end,  _ again _ .

Both Tim and Dick refuse.

That’s fine. They don’t have any sense of proportion: they think he has to be stopped  _ now _ . Don’t do it themselves, though. What’s stopping them, he wonders. Couldn’t be their familial love for him (there’s none). Couldn’t be the Batman morals (Bruce killed him after all). Couldn’t be the worry for their sense of self - with vigilantes, identity crisis is something of a running joke. Jason himself doesn’t feel like he has identity anymore. There’s just work that needs to be done, him who is doing it. But who he is changes based on that. He even was some kind of an octopus, at one point.

Maybe they know it will only take if they burn his body to ashes after, and too lazy to go to all this trouble.

His heir, he thinks, needs to be hard-working. A driven personality. Doing the right things even when they are hard things.

Like killing your own father when it becomes clear that it’s the most merciful thing that could be done for him.

It’s how they meet, him and Sasha.

She doesn’t like that name. Says her dad called her that. Jason tries Alexandra, Alex, even Shura, but neither sticks because apparently she never was called any of that. One evening, he just asks ger directly, “Well? What do you want to be called, then?”.

She shrugs and says she doesn’t know. Looks at him with hope. But he doesn’t have a talent for naming things. So he picks up a marketing book (which is actually very useful and fun) and opens the chapter on branding. He gets side-tracked by rooting out drug ring, and a Mexican cartel assassin that comes after them, though.

It’s okay. She figures it out herself. Scarlet, she tells him to call her.

He scrunches up his nose and clarifies, Scarlett, like ‘I will think about that tomorrow?’. No, she tells him. Like Red Hood, only much brighter and without a hat.

Ha, he says, nice one. But if you think you’re not getting a helmet of your own, and full-body armor, think again. Not after the Flamingo.

It should have been even before Flamingo, right from the start. Making another helmet took time, though, especially since their measurements are pretty different and some things just didn’t fit, or they did and it was too busy bulky for her to fight, or hell, just turn her head in.

But it’s done, and she just has to wear it. That part, she agrees with, maybe because it allows them to have secret conversations in a room full of people. He cracks a joke about teenage girls loving gossip and she cracks his skull. He feels proud. She won’t be taking anyone’s shit.

Body armor, though, is another thing entirely. Jason tries to be sympathetic to the cause of figuring yourself out and even encouraging. He doesn’t want her to feel stupid or humiliated if he proves her how impractical fighting crime in a skirt and heeled boots is by tripping her up or something. It’s not her fault that kind of thing is the only thing she sees women heroes wear. Bathsuit. Fetish leather gear. Heels, always heels.

Instead, he makes himself a new suit. The one with a skirt and thigh-high boots. He doesn’t get shot, but he is much slower like this. He hopes this will at least make her reconsider.

She does. Mumbles something like, oh my god you’re so embarrassing I hate you please take it off and burn. Sketches out a more practical version of tactical pants and jacket combo and trusts in his hands. Is he happy, she demands to know. And Jason actually is.

She also takes time and effort to come up with the most ridiculous fashions in their everyday lives and always eyes him suspiciously: is he going to police her appearance now as well? But he never does. In fact, he very much approves of her make up game. It sure will throw off facial recognition. It also feels… Punk, in a way. Because she doesn’t wear the mask anymore, and the skin underneath was damaged without recognition (kinda makes Jason wish Tommy Elliott was alive and not an asshole; he did wonders for Harvey Dent). And she honest to god paints her face. Her face belongs in a museum (but not in a creepy way, but like it’s an impressionist painting).

He doesn’t tell her that. She would just probably kill him again. Teenagers are very sensitive and self-conscious.

He does tell her that if she ever killed him - no, it’s okay, just in case, it’s an if and not why - she should aim for the head, and burn the body after.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing for a dopamine hit but posting for comments. Do with this information what you will.


End file.
